An imager making use of an electrophotographic imaging process comprises developer equipment for developing latent images on a photosensitive drum.
For this developer, as shown typically in FIG. 5, there is a developer 71 known so far in the art, which is of the structure that comprises a hopper 72, a developing roller 73, a rotatable agitator 74 and a developing blade 75 (see JP(A)2003-43812, etc.).
With this developer 71, a toner 76 in the hopper 72 is fed by the agitator 74 to the developing roller 73 so that the toner in thin layer form is uniformly carried on the peripheral surface of the developing roller 73 by frictional electrification between the developing blade 75 and the developing roller 73. And then, the toner 76 passes from the developing roller 73 onto a photosensitive drum 77 with a latent image formed on it for development.
The developing blade 75 known so far in the art, for instance, is of the structure that comprises a blade member 84 of resilient material formed along the end side of a metallic support member 82.
The resilient material used for the blade member 84 of the developing blade 75, for instance, is formed of silicone rubber. The resilient member of such silicone rubber is configured into a given shape by mixing a cross-linking agent (curing agent) with the silicone rubber, casting the mixture into a mold cavity, and curing it there.
Not until now is there any attempt at intentionally adding additives into silicone rubber to let it have some specific functions, because there is the need of taking full advantage of the superior physical properties that the silicone rubber has by itself, for instance, flexibility, heat resistance, durability, etc.
However, introducing improvements in the robustness of the blade member 84 of resilient material makes sure product quality is assured over extended periods of time; so it would be a factor of vital importance.
The situation being like such, the invention has for its object to improve on the robustness of a developing blade without detrimental to image quality by decreasing the friction coefficient of silicone rubber in a practical range and without detrimental to its flexibility or other physical properties of the silicone rubber to let the developing blade slip off more, thereby diminishing the amount of abrasion of the rubber.